Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Here's another vintage car seen in the 1/4 lb Giant Burger parking lot last Friday night. Studebakers , with that distinctive bullet nose, are hard to miss. (Except «Louis» tells me this is a Ford. Also with a bullet nose. My bad). Like all vintage cars, they are portals to the past. Although I don't pine for the 50s, it's kind of fun to visit now and then. Car restoration also represents incredible skill and artistry that has endured across the generations. This little beauty probably never looked this good when it rolled off the assembly line. For more expressions of "Y" visit this week's participants in ABC Wednesday.

psssst.... Carolyn....shhh.....(this is a Ford, not a Studebaker)... Both had similar ideas at the same time - both influenced by jet aircraft, which, of course were still new and novel at the time. This Ford is probably a '49, possibly a '50. In 1950, Studebaker's famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) "bullet nose" appeared. It was Studebaker's high-water sales mark. They sold over 350,000 cars that year, a figure they never again attained. The styling was done by Robert Bourke who worked for Raymond Lowey whose design firm was contracted to Studebaker. Lowey was a Frenchman who founded his design firm in the U.S. and influenced U.S. industrial design for many years. On the Studebaker, Lowey's instructions to Bourke were: "Zee aeroplane, Bob! Make zee front look like zee aeroplane!" Bourke's finest work was the still-very beautiful '53-'54 Studebaker Starliner. Bourke's '53 Studebaker Starliner was the first car ever to be displayed as an exhibit in the New York MOMA.